EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Compiled by Mike Mason
TOP STORY
A partnership between Aliso Viejo-based Fluor Corp. and Britain’s AMEC PLC won contracts worth up to $1.1 billion to rebuild Iraq’s water and sewage systems from the Pentagon. The venture nabbed $500 million of power rebuilding work earlier this month … Kraft Foods Inc. said it plans to close its 375,000-square-foot Buena Park bakery by December. The cracker-making operation has 235 workers. Kraft said it would sell the plant and 24 acres. Bakery work will be moved to Kraft’s other plants. Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft plans to close up to 20 plants worldwide in its restructuring.
TECHNOLOGY
Ingram Micro Inc. president and chief operating officer Michael Grainger abruptly resigned after the computer products distributor named Kevin Murai and Greg Spierkel as new co-presidents. Grainger’s chief operating officer title isn’t expected to be filled, with Murai, Ingram’s former president of North American operations, and Spierkel, its former European chief, assuming those duties. Grainger joined Ingram in 1996 and guided the company through its initial public offering and restructuring amid the tech downturn … Hewlett-Packard Co. filed a patent infringement suit against Poway-based Gateway Inc. Some of H-P’s claims are levied against Irvine-based eMachines Inc., which Gateway bought in March … Bellevue, Wash.-based Saflink Corp. said it plans to buy Irvine-based SSP Solutions Inc. for $49.5 million in stock.
HEALTHCARE
Lake Forest-based I-Flow Corp. said it planned to raise up to $43.3 million in a stock sale of 2.6 million shares. The maker of drug delivery devices said it will use the funds to boost its sales staff, continue clinical trials and fund its doctor reimbursement program. Meanwhile, shares of I-Flow fell 15% to 13 after the company said its loss in the March quarter would be higher than expected … The Food and Drug Administration gave Irvine-based Refractec Inc. approval to market its conductive keratoplasty procedure to correct age-related farsightedness … St. Joseph Hospital in Orange broke ground on a $132 million tower with 14 operating rooms and 150 beds. The facility is expected to be finished in 2007 … The California Public Employees’ Retirement System nominated Ralph Whitworth, chairman of Lake Forest-based Apria Healthcare Group Inc., to serve on the New York Stock Exchange board.
REAL ESTATE
Vista-based Pan Pacific Retail Properties Inc. said it bought Anaheim Plaza from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System for $57 million … The Cottonwood Christian Center got the final OK from Cypress to build a $50 million campus on 28 acres of a former golf course. Los Alamitos must sign off on the church’s traffic mitigation plan as the final hurdle in the church’s five-year battle to build a church complex in OC … Huntington Beach-based Cannery Hamilton Properties LLC said it will pay some $600,000 to clean up an oil pump malfunction that sprayed homes and cars in the area with a mist of oil. About 80 homeowners have filed damage claims. Cannery Hamilton is a venture of ChevronTexaco Corp. and ConocoPhillips.
FINANCE
The Illinois State Universities Retirement System said it planned to withdraw $250 million from Newport Beach-based Pacific Investment Management Co. amid “unease” over allegations of improper trading in some of Pimco’s funds. The $12.5 billion Illinois fund has $2.3 billion invested in Pimco’s mutual funds … Puerto Rico-based Popular Inc. will take over eight OC branches after its Banco Popular unit said it plans to buy Whittier-based Quaker City Bancorp for $367 million. Banco Popular has four branches in the county … Newport Beach-based Downey Financial Corp. said it’s scouting for new locations after Kroger Co. said it plans to shutter 15 Ralphs grocery stores, including five that have Downey Savings branches.
GOVERNMENT
The University of California, Irvine named Andrew Policano as its new business school dean. Policano, who will take over in August, is the former dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He takes over from interim head and professor Jone Pearce, who’s been running the department since 2002 … Presidential candidate John Kerry called on the Bush administration to open housing at the former El Toro Marine base to military families. The Navy plans to auction land on the former base, with the city of Irvine planning park land, residential and office space on the property’s 3,700 acres … The House Transportation Committee included about 20 OC projects as part of its $275 billion spending bill. Specific funds weren’t earmarked for the proposed CenterLine light-rail system, but the project was included in the bill, which is expected to go before the full house this week. Placentia’s troubled OnTrac rail project got $14 million, enough to pay its current bills … The Orange County grand jury declined to review problems with the county’s new electronic voting system during the March 2 election.
WHAT ELSE IS NEWS
Boeing Co. said it planned to keep about 500 workers in Huntington Beach analyzing space shuttle safety issues in the next two years. The aerospace company cut its Huntington Beach plant shuttle workers from 800 to 250 in a 2002 reorganization, before boosting the count to 500 after the shuttle Columbia disaster … Restaurateurs Ivan and Marco Calderon plan to open Taco Rosa, an upscale Mexican eatery, in Newport Hills Shopping Center in April. The Calderon brothers own five small taquerias under the Taco Mesa name in OC … Nextel Communications Inc.’s Irvine-based Boost Mobile LLC unit said it started selling wireless phone service in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
